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JackClarke

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Everything posted by JackClarke

  1. I always wondered where it was. Thanks for sharing this I'm sure many people will find it useful. Does anyone know if Twitter Auth is anything like LinkedIns because it looks very similar and I'm interested in trying to create a LinkedIn login system for MyBB or IPB. If it's similar than I should be able to get it done more easily and for less. Also, does Facebook connect work in a similar way? Do you setup an app and get various IDs and is the option in the same place in the ACP? Thanks.
  2. Entirely depends on what you're doing. If you're building a large site with lots of features that are available within Drupal or Joomla then you should use one if it will save you significant amounts of time. However you won't fully understand the working of it without working on the software for a long time which is often why it's a good idea to build your own as you know exactly how it's been put together. You can get some fantastic sites like Ecademy which is built on Drupal but then most of the biggest sites like Facebook are built using their own code suggesting that you're more likely to have big success if it's completely your project from start to finish. I personally would choose to write my own script or use something much smaller and lightweight so I could understand it more easily.
  3. JackClarke

    SMF anyone?

    Security is absolutely terrible and the system is not well built. I've never had a good experience with SMF, the Admin CP is confusing as things often just don't work or can be done so many ways it clearly hasn't been thought through, the themes themselves are often ugly and this just makes me want to avoid sites.
  4. SMF is absolutely terrible. Security is poor, the system is cheap and poorly built and the updates are also terrible. The ACP is one of the worst you can use and generally this makes for a poor experience across most of an SMF board. it's ugly most of the time as well. I refuse to join SMF forums unless I have too.
  5. Not true at all. If you're using sprites you should be using GIFs or PNGs depending on the quality of your images. You can't really use GIFs on dark websites (if you're using transparency) and PNGs are necessary for higher quality images with transparency. However you want to ensure the quickest site loading speed. This means sprites can be a good idea. JPEGs can be significantly smaller files. If you have a really big background image then you're better off using a smaller JPEG as it will take less time to load than a PNG. GIFs aren't really great for anything much anymore because PNGs fulfil the role GIFs used to have with transparency. You can still use them if you only have a few small images/sprite(s) which are to be used on white because the file size will be smaller.
  6. I think IP Board is the best community software out there as it is one of the most secure and stable boards as well as being up to date with the web with things like notifications. It also has the best default design so if you plan to use that then stick with IPB. XenForo is the second best. It's new and shiny so a lot of people vote for it but unfortunately it's young age shows. There are a huge amount of bugs, a lack of plugins and theme developers are in short supply. The software itself is great but has a long way to go before it can properly compete. MyBB is the next best software. It is free which means you have plenty of money left to buy a great custom theme and these are often cheaper than custom themes for the paid softwares! MyBB also comes with a great plugin and theme system. vBuletin is fourth and is quite similar to MyBB but it is very bloated and slow. Many people have server issues if they try to run vBulletin on shared hosting. As it's paid and has a team of developers working on it you get better security but the software itself could do with being rewritten to make it more lightweight. phpBB is one of the most popular softwares and has been around for a very long time. It's got a huge number of plugins and themes out there and the theme system isn't bad allowing you to edit using your favourite website editing tools. Unfortunately the ACP is confusing and plugins are just a nightmare. This software isn't as easy to use as MyBB but can provide some great features because of the large community behind it. One of the worst forum softwares out there is SMF. Updates are slow and security is awful. The software is really poor quality and there are problems throughout it. The ACP is dreadful and themes aren't great. Yet there is one thing I like about SMF - it's the only forum I can find with LinkedIn login integration!
  7. Just me and perhaps one other admin if he's involved. If you make too many people moderators up front and the community doesn't grow very fast then it looks really unbalanced when there are more than 50% staff on your board. It can also put people off, if you were the only person listed as member when everyone else was a moderator you'd be slightly annoyed wouldn't you? I personally think you should avoid having lots of moderators at launch unless there is already a large community that you are adding a community to because otherwise the ratio of members to staff would be wrong and this can scare people away.
  8. I post less than five but more often none because I like to encourage our users to start their own threads. If everyone follows one person around who is creating threads then you can face problems if that person is away or ill for whatever reason. By encouraging the community to look after itself these problems are less likely to occur. Also it can often seem a bit annoying if it's always the same person starting threads - particularly if they're predictable - so by encouraging new direction in existing discussions you don't steal the limelight and somebody else gets the credit for starting the new topic.
  9. I've never done this but I am very interested in doing something like this in the future. I have a community that is just about on the edge of the cliff and it only has a few members about but a few members is still a community. I've reached the stage where it's hard to give them much more and people weren't and aren't joining the community. By purchasing other forums or merging with them I'd be able to breathe some fresh life into the community. If I can find another forum or two in a similar situation and am able to make the few members left stick around I'd be able to create a larger community. This would potentially keep both communities going together as the users would be meeting some new members. Obviously there are some issues. Some posts may not fit in or may be duplicates and you just have to do your best to sort these things out. You can close one topic and link it to another or merge it but whatever you do make sure you're consistent across the board.
  10. Hey, Has anyone comes across so.cl yet? It's Microsoft's new social network that they released this weekend on the quiet. The idea behind it seems to be a little different - instead of creating yet another Social Network users login with Windows Live or Facebook and then they can choose what to search for and it's some kind of social search tool. What does anyone think of it that's seen it? Personally, I'm not really sure I have much use for it. Just seems like another site I've registered too that I probably won't go back to. Although an article I read somewhere suggested it was for students to share projects and nobody I know is using it so I guess that makes it redundant? If you haven't seen it here's there link: http://www.so.cl/ Jack
  11. Hey, What do people think about Hackintoshes? For anyone who doesn't know, a Hackintosh is any non-Apple computer running Mac OS. Apple themselves are totally against this but that's understandable because they lose sales if people are buying machines elsewhere. Yet it can be a good idea as you can build a machine for almost half price sometimes. I've seen a desktop machine with the same spec as the minimum Mac Pro for just over £800 when the Mac Pro was almost (if not) £2000. Personally I think they're great for people on a budget. The design of the machines can't compare and you don't get the support or anything but you do get what you pay for and if you can't afford the design and support from Apple then I'd say a Hackintosh is a great option for you! Let me know your thoughts! Thanks, Jack
  12. I can understand this. You obviously want to post when people are online and looking at their news feed. If you post and think they'll spot it when they come online then they won't unless they come to your page specifically. I can't understand why a Tuesday at that time would be up there but obviously 'Matt's Company' found that to be the case. Does anyone know of any tools to delay posts? I know that there are plenty out there for Twitter but I don't know about Facebook. Well, there is Social Oomph but to use the Facebook option you have to pay for premium which is like $18 every 2 weeks.
  13. Hey, I was just browsing the forums for a section to post about Android and WebOS and noticed these Operating Systems weren't covered. I thought perhaps it might be worth suggesting that you create a forum either for Mobile OSs or Other OSs so there is a place to talk about iOS, Android, WebOS, Symbian etc? Thanks, Jack
  14. Windows 7 has become a pain in the backside recently because the Intel graphics driver has been causing me grief, crashing every 5 mins (although I just reinstalled it so who knows?). Also viruses are far more of an issue on Win 7 and I find myself formatting far too often using Windows. I'm also just getting a little tired of Windows having used it almost daily for so many years - it feels like time for a change and as I can't afford a Mac I can only look at Windows. Looks like I'll have to stick with Windows for a few years until I can buy myself a Mac. Thanks for the responses.
  15. Ah I see thanks for explaining the correct terminology to me. I now understand it a little better although I still need to get my head around OOP with PHP because I found PP far easier when I built my first CMS. Over at MyBB someone suggested the plugin system should use classes, would you agree with that or not?
  16. I'm not sure my laptop could handle two OSs, Photoshop/Illustrator/iTunes at the same time as all my other programs. I'd be better off just using Windows. The problem with solutions like Wine is that they don't work properly for such large programs, often quite a lot just doesn't work as it should. Really I need versions of the software build for Linux. :/
  17. I'm currently using Chrome but I'm not a massive fan of it. Firefox is better as a browser and Firebug is much better than the equivalent thing in Chrome. Opera has the feature where you can stack tabs which I really like and there's no such thing for Chrome which annoys me.
  18. Hey, I've used Ubuntu a few times in the past and I think it really is a great operating system. It does almost everything I need but almost isn't good enough unfortunately. Some of the key things I need are iTunes, Illustrator and Photoshop and I need them to work as well as they would in Windows. Does anyone know if this is possible yet because that is the reason I'm still using Windows 7. Thanks to anyone who can help. Jack
  19. Every 7 days. This is because the MCNode servers are backed up every 7 days so we just back them all up at once. It would be far too expensive to backup over 300GB daily. The backups are less important on our server because we don't upload a lot to it and it's usually kept on our computers as well. What is important is the client's data from MCNode.
  20. Namecheap is the best one I've come across so I use it. It has a really user friendly setup and great staff there to support you. The only reason I've ever used anyone else is because GoDaddy has some very good deals on domains but their public image is awful so I'd choose to avoid them most of the time.
  21. Hey, I'm quite new to PHP and have only just started to learn it but I've come across several things that have thrown up some questions. Usercake is something that introduced me to classes in PHP but I don't know why they're used. Could somebody tell me when and why you should use classes in PHP? Somebody over at MyBB suggested that the plugins system should change to use classes to prevent conflict, how would it do this? Why not just use standard functions? Thanks to anyone who can explain this! Jack
  22. You can do some pretty amazing things with it. Just for those who are interested it goes like this. text-shadow: {1} {2} {3} {4}; {1} = Horizontal offset. If this is 1px then the shadow goes up by 1px, -1px sends it down by 1px. {2} = Vertical offset. If this is set to 1px then the shadow goes right by 1px, -1px sends it left by 1px. {3} = [OPTIONAL] Blur radius. This is how much blur you want to use. More blur results in a bigger glow. {4} = Colour. This can be set using any HTML colour value whether it is 'red' or #FF0000. Hopefully this will help anyone wanting to use this.
  23. Gmail is the best email service I've found. Almost all of my emails use it because I find it the one with the most effective spam filter and very quick and easy to use. The only problem with it is you can't have all your emails in one feed and have to switch between accounts. That does irritate me and I'm starting to consider using an email client again. The thing that has stopped me from reinstalling a client like Thunderbird or Outlook is the fact I have an Android phone and Tablet which I read most of my email on. You don't have to keep logging in and out of accounts for different services, you just click the dropdown and select one.
  24. Windows 7. I would have said XP over Vista but Windows 7 feels more like XP improved. In fact I even like Internet Explorer 9 which is something I wouldn't have dreamt of saying a few months ago and you won't get IE 9 on Windows XP. You should go for 7 for support too. Microsoft no longer support XP so for security you're safer on 7.
  25. With GoDaddy I find their services to be as good as anyone else's but their PR is absolutely terrible. They ought to employ a small team of staff to look at their public image and they'll have a huge job on their hands because the elephant shooting and support for SOPA severely damaged their public image. Personally I use a private server with OVH and have absolutely no problems at all. I don't like to buy everything from the big guys at the top because I find that usually their support is lacking and they don't really care as much about the customers because they can just pay someone else to deal with us.
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